The Green Hero

by Bernard Evslin

  He squatted on the beach. Hunger burned more savagely than ever. He was drunk on the smell of his own blood, but he felt an odd dazed comfort; he no longer had to seek food—it was right there for him now until the end of time. And, squatting there, grunting, slavering, he slowly devoured himself, stretching his neck until it was as long as a serpent’s and he could reach all the farthest parts of himself. He ate steadily—until all that was left was his mouth, which smiled greedily and swallowed itself.

  It was dawn now. The gulls were screaming, trying to wake the fish. An old Hag with ashy hair and bloody lips stood on the beach where the king had been. She cackled once, rose into the air, and flew away through the dodging gulls.

  At the hut in the hills, Hanratty’s daughter and young Finn McCool had risen early too, being very hungry, and were eating breakfast on the bench in front of the fire.

  Finn and Goll

  NOW FINN SOUGHT GOLL McMorna to challenge him for the chieftainship of the Fianna. He journeyed across Meath, harp slung. It was a blue smoky fall day. The cat stalked after through the grass; the hawk circled low. They neared Tara, castle of the High King, where Goll also dwelt, and Finn watched eagerly for the first sight of its white stone walls and its roof, striped crimson and blue. But no castle appeared. They had come to a wall of fog, but not like any fog they had known; it did not move upon the wind, nor rise, nor thin away. When they tried to pass through they did not bump into anything solid, but simply lost the power of movement until they stepped back.

  “What is it?” cried Finn.

  “Nothingness grown solid,” said the harp. “A clot of that which is not barring that which is. Different forms of not-ness mixed, perhaps—invisibility, silence, denial—who knows what angry gods build with. Beyond it lies Tara, or where Tara used to be.”

  “You think this the work of angry gods?”

  “Or playful ones. They’re equally dangerous.”

  “What do we do? How do we pass?”

  “Hard questions. We cannot seek their answer in ordinary places. Say a verse—quickly! Touch me and sing!”

  Finn touched the harpstrings, and sang:

  Harp on tree,

  Hawk to sea,

  Cat makes three.

  “I read it like this,” said the harp. “You must hang me on a tree. The winds will come telling what they see when they blow over Meath. And you must send the falcon flying to question the fowls of air. Set the creepy cat crawling in the underbrush, seeking rats and such as live in holes and burrows, going in and out and are filthy and have information. We shall gather the news and bring it back.”

  “Away with you, friends!” cried Finn. “And I shall study this puzzling wall more closely.”

  The hawk flew away to question the gulls, as instructed. The cat vanished into the underbrush. And Finn hung the harp on a willow tree.

  He, himself, departed to circle the wall of fog and look for a way through, but he came back to where he had started without glimpsing Tara. He came to the willow tree where he had hung the harp. It swayed there in the wind, singing softly. The hawk sat on a branch near it, and the cat sat next to the hawk.

  “I found no way through the fog,” said Finn.

  “Nor will you,” said the harp. “Listen, Finn, to what we have learned, we three. It is a magic fog, sowed by a hundred mist-crones flying in formation. They were sent by Vilemurk to hide Goll McMorna from you and prevent your challenge. And, it is said Goll will stay hidden until Vilemurk cooks up a tactic that will assure your defeat.”

  “Things don’t seem to be going so well,” said Finn.

  “Not well at all, my boy. You need some influence in high places too, or you will never get to lead the Fianna. All you’ll be leading is your own funeral procession.”

  “What shall I do?”

  “Seek the help of a god.”

  “I seem to offend every god I meet. Vilemurk is my declared enemy, of course. And you know what Lyr thinks of me because of Kathleen. And that episode with Hanratty’s daughter didn’t help me there either. Lyr had his eye on her too. She appealed to him once and he taught her sea changes. I don’t know any god who’ll help me.”

  “Try a goddess then. You seem to do better in that direction.”

  “What goddess?”

  “Amara, Queen of the Harvest. She owes you a favor anyway. She hit you with Famine instead of Hanratty. An accident, of course, but you did suffer in her cause. It’s worth a try. You have nothing to lose.”

  “Come then,” said Finn. “We’ll look for Amara.”

  He found her under an oak tree, picking acorns. It was the largest oak in Eire, perhaps in the world. Unimaginably old, with a huge bole, massive limbs, and deep ridged bark. It was called the Druid’s Oak, and was Amara’s favorite place.

  She was so tall she could stand under the oak and put fallen birds back into the nest merely by reaching her arm. Glad in green she was; her hair hung thick and yellow as sheaves of wheat. As Finn approached he became aware of the fragrance arising from her bare shoulders; she smelled of sunshine and crushed grass. Her beauty robbed Finn of his sense; he could hardly speak.

  “Do you seek me, lad?” she called.

  “I seek you, O Queen of the Harvest. I seek your favor.”

  “Speak.”

  “Unwittingly, you have done me harm.”

  “Do you dare come to Amara with reproaches? I cherish only what grows. Where there is blame nothing grows.”

  “I am grateful for the injury you did me, lovely goddess, since it leads to our acquaintance.”

  “What injury? Who are you?”

  “I am Finn McCool whom your servant, Famine, mistook for Hanratty, whose form I had been forced to take by enchantment.”

  “Oh, yes, Hanratty … the grove-defiler. I’d almost forgotten.”

  “It was I who was entered by Famine. I suffered the torments of hunger, and the worse torments of gluttony.”

  “What of Hanratty? Did he go free, that foul butcher?”

  “Only at first. I was released from enchantment, and we resumed our own forms. I wooed his daughter, and Hanratty disapproved of the match—and ate himself up alive.”

  “A proper ending,” said Amara.

  “Proper indeed. Now I go in search of my enemy, Goll McMorna. But he is being aided by Vilemurk and I need help in high places. I come to you, Amara, whom I love and honor beyond all other gods and goddesses.”

  “You want my help?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you not know that a god’s favor can damage a weak man beyond repair—that it can twist him and shake him and blast him till it seems like a curse?”

  “Ah, lady, I am accustomed to risk. And I have already been blessed or cursed by the sight of your beauty. I will take all you have to give, if you do the giving.”

  “You will obey me in all things?”

  “I will.”

  “Stand there then, and accept what comes.”

  She stretched her arms high. Her tall radiance blotted the weak sunlight. The afternoon was stunned by her beauty. The brook stopped talking, and the wind held its breath. The rough meadow grass stiffened. The Druid Oak stretched huge arms toward her, then tore itself out of the ground and hobbled toward her on its twisted roots. The birds, shaken from their nests, chided as they came. Finn would have fled the tree, but Amara pushed him into the thick of its brush. He tried to lunge away, but could not break loose; he was tangled in a vine. Amara laughed and wound another coil of vine about him, binding him fast.

  “Do not struggle, foolish one,” said Amara. “Let him take you into his oaken embrace. Do you not know him? He is the Sacred Oak, broken shadow of the eldest god, which has taken root in this field, and drinks its living waters, and grows huge and lusty, putting out blossoms, dropping acorns. He is a god, a rough wooden shade-giving god. He is the oak of your clan, Finn, vined by mistletoe, that magic loop. Yield … yield. … It is a father’s embrace. He is of your father too, this oak; his long
taproot drinks of dead kings.”

  Finn stopped struggling. In the music of her voice, he gave himself to the idea of oak. A green drowse fell upon him, and he slept.

  When he awoke he was sitting in the shade of the Druid Oak, which had rooted itself again. Dusk had fallen, and a cold wind blew. Amara spoke to him:

  “You have taken a step toward understanding. Now do this. Strip yourself naked despite the cold, or rather because of the cold, so that you will be frozen away from your own self, so that your blood will slow, and a silence come upon you, and a stillness upon your fancy, and you will invent nothing, and claim nothing, but give yourself to perfect attention. Then, after three days, we will come together, and I shall hear what you have learned.”

  And so it was done. After three days Finn sank into the ground past the roots of grass and flowers and the gnarled clutch of the oak to a warm place where waters are born out of underground steam. There he thawed, and clawed his way up again into light, disturbing moles.

  Amara was waiting for him under the oak tree. “Did you dwell in that darkness?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “In the silence?”

  “I did.”

  “Were you cold?”

  “I was.”

  “Did the darkness and the silence and the cold help you to perfect attention?”

  “They did.”

  “Did light come to you in the darkness?”

  “The only light came from a kind of dream which happened outside my head, not inside. A bright picture floated before me in the darkness. I saw low burned hills and a flash of sea. And things tearing at the earth, pecking metal lizards all over, eating every inch of space, swarming on the beaches, filling the air with a brown oily smell—coming out of the earth to eat the living green. I felt my heart being devoured, Amara, as I watched the metal lizards eating the trees, and soiling the sand, and drinking the margins of the sea. What were they? What did I see?”

  “Mineral devils.”

  “And what are they?”

  “They belong to the kingdom of Vilemurk. As Frost Demon and Lord of Misrule he is King of the Mineral Devils. But you saw more in your vision. What else did you see?”

  “It was too horrible. I cannot bear to remember.”

  “You are my warrior. You must look horror in the face, and not flinch. Tell me what you saw.”

  “The mineral devils making a mineral masterpiece. A great egg which breaks into mineral fire when it is laid by mineral birds. The birds were in the air, dropping their eggs of fire, smashing cities, igniting the dust, fusing bones and beams, roasting the cattle in the fields and the fish in the lake.” His face was wet with tears. “What was it, Amara, what did I see?”

  “You saw man himself as mineral devil. In your vision of time to come, he has turned away from the living gods and worships himself as mineral devil. Vilemurk triumphs. Lyr is dead, and I am dead. Man has turned his trees to spikes, his grass to barbs, and his path is stone.”

  “Will this come to pass? Must it be?”

  “There is no ‘must’ in human affairs, oh, boy-who-would-be-a-man. That is a Vilemurk idea. The mineral devils want man to believe that his future can be read in the cold and mathematical stars. And so man loses hope, loses joy, and abandons himself to the devil-gods of industry, artifice, order. He trades his warm living body for a cold idea. Sells himself to the smith demons, chains himself to a stone, and stokes the forge-fires until he drops from exhaustion or is flogged to death. You know. You were a slave in the smithy.”

  “I did not sell myself. I was captured. And I escaped. Killed my captors and escaped—with a marvelous sword.”

  “Yes, you escaped. And made your way here to be my warrior. But you will not use that sword when you fight Goll McMorna.”

  “Not use my blue sword? Why not?”

  “It is made of metal, and metal belongs to Vilemurk.”

  “The sword belongs to me.”

  “Its metal belongs to Vilemurk and will not serve you. Goll McMorna is Vilemurk’s man. Right now he is in the smithy, being armed by the mineral devils. They are dressing him in metal. When he faces you he will wear brass armor and carry an iron sword.”

  “How will I be armed?”

  “With a hawthorne stick and bag of seed. You will wear no armor, but a light woolen tunic, dyed green. Nor iron hat, but a crown of leaves. You will wield a hawthorne club. At your belt will hang a bag of seed.”

  “And Goll will be wearing—what again?”

  “Breastplate and greaves of bright brass. He will carry a spear for throwing, and a huge two-handed sword for closework—and a battle-axe slung.”

  “A stick against a sword?” said Finn. “Goll is a fearsome warrior in his own right, you know, even without this inequality of arms. What chance will I have?”

  “The chance I give you. Which means the chance you give yourself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Your weapons will do for you only what you do for them. You must make them extensions of yourself. Infuse them with your own virtue. They will respond to your courage; smite with your strength, take their edge from your fineness.”

  “A stick against a sword … wood against iron. …”

  “Wood is alive. Iron is wood, long dead. The devils are dead gods.”

  “Help me to understand.”

  “You have seen a horrible vision of man as mineral devil, consuming the earth with mineral fire. But that vision will begin to come true only on the day when the weapons that man wields are stronger than man himself. On that day he begins to lose both strength and honor, and gives himself to the mineral devils. Do you understand?”

  “I’m trying to.”

  “You have come to me, Amara, Goddess of Growing Things. You are son of the oak, harvest prince, my green hero. You cannot bear metal. You must use the living tools I give you.”

  “Shall I cut my stick from that hawthorne tree?”

  “I’ll break it off. No blade must touch it.”

  “And the bag of seed?”

  “I’ll teach you its use.”

  Amara taught Finn how to use the seeds. They were acorns of the Druid Oak. Now the roots of an oak tree go very deep. They sink themselves into the soil as far as they can, and grapple the earth hungrily. The bigger the tree, the longer the roots. And this Druid Oak, as we know, was the biggest tree in all Eire, and perhaps in all the world.

  “Keep the acorns in your pouch,” Amara said. “And keep the pouch at your belt. The seeds will hunger to sink themselves into the earth and put out roots, so that you will be given an enormous family pull toward the earth. Each time you touch the earth you will feel new strength coursing through your body, the incredible stubborn sappy strength of living things—the green strength, the magical plant strength which can push a tiny flower through a floor of stone, the flower we call saxifrage. So imagine what power it gives to the oak and the seeds of the oak. And that power, Finn, will flow through you when you touch the earth. With sword and battle-axe, Goll will try to beat down your guard, and beat you to earth. But, if he does, you will drink of its strength and arise renewed.”

  “And the seeds stay always in the pouch?” said Finn. “And the pouch at my belt?”

  “Only if you know that you face death the next instant may you take a seed from the pouch. Then take only one, and cast it upon the earth. But remember—only if you face death. If you do it before that time you will have scattered your strength, and must fall under the blows of your enemy.”

  “I shall remember,” said Finn.

  “Go now. I shall watch over you. I—Amara, Lady of the Grove. Bride of the Oak, Queen of the Harvest, Goddess of Growing Things. Take of my strength. Drink of my bounty. Strike a blow for the quick, the living, the warm-blooded. Blessings of the seed be upon you, of the root and the blossom. Murmurous blessings of the leaves. Be of good cheer, have no fear, strike with joy. The grace of all natural strokes be with you—from tiger-paw to leaf-fall
. Bless you, Finn, bless you. Your victory is ours.”

  She knelt and took him into her meadow-sweet embrace, kissed him upon the lips, and then disappeared, leaving him reeling with happiness and unafraid.

  All of Eire had to come to see the battle, it seemed. Upon the great plain of Meath before the walls of Tara were assembled the bravest and fairest in all the land. The fog-wall had blown away. A slant sun fell; the air was blue and smoky. Tents and pavilions flashed upon the plain, striped blue and crimson. Struck into the ground stood a forest of pennants—the colors of the warrior chiefs, colors of the fighting clans. The tents of the Fianna were green and gold; they sat in one cluster. These men were the picked warriors in all Ireland; it was for their chieftainship that Finn had challenged Goll. The High King sat on the royal stone—three slabs of rock forming a natural throne—on a hill overlooking the plain. The king sat there, his gold crown on his head, gold staff in his hand. His Royal Guard surrounded him. Standing there too, leaning on their spears, were the twelve brothers of Goll McMorna, underchiefs of the Fianna. The ladies of the court stood with their men. They wore beautiful gowns of silk and wreaths of flowers in their hair. They were tall and free-limbed and easy-laughing. They often accompanied their men into battle, and were sometimes more feared than the men themselves.

  There were others there too—a dreadful legion whom no one saw. They had the power of keeping themselves invisible to mortal eye until they chose to appear. These were Vilemurk’s cohorts, summoned there to help Goll, if needed. There were the mist-crones, and the frost demons, the Master of Winds, and Vilemurk himself, of course. He was too important for complete invisibility though; all you could see of him was the edge of his beard, like a fleecy cloud.